Tuesday, November 30, 2010

The #bikeschool crew has an exciting announcement to make today. Just in time to solve all your Christmas gift giving nightmares, we've got some fantastic ideas for all the cyclists on your list. Our own @egggman (aka Mike) has created the "Givestrong" Cycling Santa graphic and it's available on T-shirts, Mugs, and Stickers. Best of all.....the proceeds from the sale of all merchandise is being sent over to Livestrong to help support their cause (if a considerable amount is raised, we will donate half the proceeds to the Canadian Cancer Society).

Friday, November 26, 2010

Tuesday was a normal day, I woke up dragged myself out of bed grabbed some breakfast and rode into work. I was a little over-layered as I had been on Monday also but it seemed cool and damp when I took the dog out for her morning romp. Work was work nothing crazy nothing odd, just steady work. Paul and I had ran on Monday but were both trying to kick a little cold and figured if we ran it would work us a little harder and help clear the cold. He lives just footsteps from the office so he left to get ready as per usual and I went over to meet him after I got in my running gear. Luckily it was a warmish November day and I ran in shorts and a long sleeve shirt.

Waiting for Paul I decided that today we would take the trail instead of the road. I ran it by him as we headed out. it was a go. We had run the trail route before but it had been quite some time. It is basically a winding park walking trail that we do an out and back that ends up slightly over 5K which works into our lunch schedule just about right.

This trail is also the first portion of our lunch hour trail ride that takes us through some singletrack and over to the MTB park 4X and climbing training spot.

We got to talking about "trail running" as we ran along the footpath. I was wondering about the varying grade of trail running and if there were people who would run through a park and afterwards feel they had trail ran. As we came to a fork in the trail Paul said well should we and started to run into the Singletrack that we ride regularly. I took chase and it was on. my first singletrack "trail run". Well unless you count running with a bike up a hill that I blew a pedal on or running a km or so with a bike that i had broken a chain on etc. This was my first trail run for the sake of running in a trail. It was amazing. It helped that I knew the trail and all of the locations of the rocks and roots that were hiding under the fall leaves.

Anyway we ran the length of the singletrack which spits us out in a field and then across the field over a foot-bridge and back onto the footpath and out to the edge of the park. On the way back I took the lead through the singletrack and saw another runner off in the distance. When we were back out and onto the footpath I talked to Paul about the other runner and it turned into a bit of a joke as he had not seen it and questioned me on the legitimacy of the whole thing.

Wednesday and Thursday went from ride days to more trail run days. I think we both caught the bug.

I still got in great rides morning and evening but lunch has been to the trails by foot. next will be to take on a longer set of trails by foot. Maybe an off-road bi-athalon or tri-athalon will be in my future...

Oh and to clarify this and the enclosed pic does not mean I will not ride trail any-more, it only means that for the past 3 days I chose foot over bike. To be fair the MTB was not in my office as one of my choices...

Thursday, November 25, 2010

I have been playing with the gimp again. More since #TheChallenge. This is my latest fun little piece symbolizing the spirit of #bikeschool. Unfortunately #bikeschool is on holidays this week but will return December 2 for another fun filled hour 9pm EST.

I am never happy with a self portrait but this one will do for now. Feel free to mock etc...

Uh, oh... How did that get there, it looks like an evol elf as broken into @santabikes bag and leaked a piece of #secretevolplanC

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Not sure why but as soon as I read the challenge tweet from @bikerly I thought I would doodle him. The first time I saw him in a @lovingthebike #ff I thought he was wearing a brown cycling hat. The first few tweets I had caught from him painted him as a hardcore cyclist in my head. In time I found he is more of a wild man with running and cycling tendencies.

Anyways this is my egggified impression of his old Twavatar with the cycle hat morphed with the paper crown. I threw in his trusty steed Red for good measure too. I may have overhyped my drawing but it was all in fun.

Will be interesting to see the interesting and insightful image put forward by my #bikeschool friend.

A note to @jujufernandez, @SGadaleta, and other perspective judges. Please look at this image and the one found on Bikerly Blog and vote for the one you feel win's for what ever reason you feel it wins. This almost no rule competition makes it interesting to see what makes a winner. Throw in a jab or 2 in your comment or just come to #Bikeschool tonight at 9pm EST and poke fun of the guy in the Dunce-Cap...

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

A very open ended challenge was sent hither last evening post sleepytime. A cohort of mine decided to put it out there...

We must each use our sketching technique to render an image on ourn blogs on Thursday. I assume the man the myth the #bikeschool legend will use a Sharpie for his sketch. I in turn chose The Gimp. My image is ready and waiting on my hard-drive for a Thursday posting. Return then to find my entry in this non-lucrative contest of contests.

Ever so sneakily my competitor has chosen a fellow Sharpie fan as his judge. She however is beginning to tremble at the thought she may have to choose mine draw-ring as grand champignon (Thats right the big mushroom).

The purpose of this post is to call to order a team of zero or more nother judge types to further scrutinize the images. If you feel the urge to throw a vote of better image creativeness n' such then check our blogs's Thursday and toss a comment of "1 Vote" into comments for the blog of your choice.

I will create a Dunce-Cap Image for the Twavatar of the least winningest of winner to wear to #bikeschool....

Thursday, November 11, 2010

I "always" ride with caution when sharing the roads with motorized vehicles. My city has recently started to put in place "cycle lanes" a place you could continue to ride safely but be a tiny bit less cautious and take in a little more of what is going on around you. If you remember a couple weeks back I had a great day. Would the day have been as great without a bikelane flat? Probably not. Does this excuse the chunk of mesh metal that was in the cycle lane brushed off the "road"? Also probably not.

The last couple days I have had amazing lunch hour rides! Absolutely amazing for November in Ontario. 8 and 9 degrees Celsius and sunny. I did a 16km loop yesterday and completed the planned route from two weeks back with a cell phone in my pocket and route plan passed on to Paul (lesson learned). Today I took an alternate route to my regular commute and surprised my wife with a luch hour visit. The rides were things of lunch hour dreams. Good climbs great cadence(just kicked a cold), etc...

I rode both of these rides watching my surroundings but also with one eye on the lane. I was amazed by the amount of vehicle and other debris that was shoved into our space. I saw chunks of metal, rusted tailpipes, nails, bolts, indescribable sharpness, but the worst offender of all was an old style manhole cover where a cycle wheel can be swallowed whole that was lengthwise and was the whole width of the "cycle lane".

I don't really have a whole lot more to say on this subject. I was just shocked that while the road seems to be cleaned of debris regularily that our space alongside seems to be the lucky recipient of their trash.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Well I will tell you how far I would go to win this cool bike above!! I would go in their advertise a bike to win a bike campaign... You should try too or if you were looking for that uber-cool cargo bike head on over and buy one. You could haul the kids to #bikeschool in it.

Please click on the image above to enter me in the contest... thanks!!

Or this TweetChat link is another option (there are probably more options)

You might want to let people know your tweets will be a little crazy during the hour. Something like: tweeps, I’m heading to #bikeschool chat so just ignore my crazy tweets the next hour… or better, join in herehttp://bit.ly/9imv1H

The moderator will come with a few questions… Q1, Q2, Q3, etc. If your response begins with Q1, Q2, Q3 it will help us all follow along

Feel free to have side conversations, ask other questions, stir it up and most importantly help @lovinthebike and I throw at least a couple heckle tweets towards @bikerly.

Enjoy!!

Oh, and be ready - this week there could be a reverse pop-quiz, I could be asking anyone for a question at any time...